I blame my Aunt Jean who suggested maybe I should write stories for holidays other than Halloween. I thought, “huh, maybe for Christmas, but November is for NaNoWriMo!” Yeah, that hasn’t panned out. Like last year and the year before that 31 Ghosts left me creatively winded. But in the last few days I’ve been thinking, “Well… maybe a little commitment might be fun…” And so I bring you the Five Days of Thanksgiving, a new theme each day. Today is Day 1, which is for Shopping (for Thanksgiving).

Julie volunteered to host Thanksgiving this year for her parents and inlaws. While the thought initially overwhelmed her, she patted herself on the back by breaking down the daunting tasks involved into smaller, more manageable steps she could take care of while still maintaining her full-time job, marriage, and, hopefully, her sanity.

Her husband Alex volunteered for whipping their small house into guest-shape and said something about “setting a tablescape” that tacitly answered where her Martha Stewart Living magazines had disappeared to. She’d made sides that she doubly verified could freeze ahead of time without loss of flavor and marked their completion down on the extensive Excel spreadsheet she compiled with all the steps. She followed the rows down to the first task today:

11/25/2019 Purchase FRESH Turkey

She had nothing against frozen turkeys. She’d had frozen turkeys in the past that were delicious. But she’d never had a fresh turkey and, initially, it looked that it wouldn’t be an option this year either. She crossed off the local organic turkey farm when she checked prices and then verified that, no, the “per pound” prices weren’t, as she had first hoped, the price for the whole bird. Or two birds. Fine, maybe the organic grocery store would be better. And they were! Incrementally better, that is. She resigned herself to another Butterball when she stopped by her local supermarket and saw the sign: “Fresh Organic Turkeys! Reserve yours today!”

She did.

Oh, yes, she did! She could pick up her 20-25lb bird on Monday, November 25 after noon. On her way home after work she found a parking space and took her life in her hands as she crossed the busy parking lot. Once inside the store the dangers hadn’t diminished as Julie dodged shopping carts driven wantonly by manic, bleary eyed men and women. Thanksgiving zombies.

Doesn’t anyone have any Thanksgiving cheer? She thought.

At the meat counter in the back of the store she waited patiently for the young man to finish stickering lamb shanks plastic wrapped to pink cellophane planks. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“I’m here to pick up a fresh turkey for Julie Sykes.”

“Oh,” he said as the color drained from his face. He stared at her in silence for a moment that stretched uncomfortably on.

“Is there…” she started, “…a problem?”

“Uh…” he stammered. “You said fresh turkey, didn’t you?”

Oh crap, she thought mentally wondering whether she could thaw a Butterball before Thursday. “Yes,” she said. “Fresh turkey. 20-25 pounds–“

“Oh god,” he said as he turned from ashen to green. “That’s a big one.”

“Well,” Julie said, “I suppose so. Look, is there some kind of problem? Do I need to get a frozen bird?”

“No, no…” his eyes locked onto another meat department employee who had been restocking the store-brand frozen birds. “T.J!” he called over Julie’s shoulder.

“Yeah?” T.J. came over to the counter next to her.

“I..uh… I need you to get this woman’s fresh turkey from the fridge.”

His response was immediate and utterly unwavering. “Hell no. I got the last one. This is you.”

“But…” the man behind the counter began.

“But nothing. This is all you Alan.”

“Oh god,” he swallowed hard and turned with the same demeanor as a condemned inmate having received word his last appeal had been denied by the governor. Stoically, he walked to the walk-in cooler, opened the door with a whoosh of frost, stepped inside and let the door close behind him.

Julie waited patiently for several minutes. She thought she heard thuds and bangs coming from the walk-in, but chalked it up to someone manhandling stock elsewhere in the back. After five minutes she started to grow impatient. After ten minutes she grew concerned.

“T.J. is it?” she tapped the man stocking the generic birds. “Sorry to bug you, but I’m a little worried. It’s been more than ten minutes since the clerk went to get my fresh turkey. Is everything okay?”

“More than ten minutes?” his eyes grew wide with panic. “Jesus Christ!” he yelled and bolted for the swinging door separating store from meat department. He threw the cooler door open and Julie heard a scream, high and desperate escape from the walk-in. J.T. ran in and the door hung ajar as now Julie absolutely heard what sounded like a fight – thuds, certainly, but also slaps, groans, another shriek, a louder thud.

Then silence.

Julie stared at the open walk-in with genuine fear. Should she go in herself? Find someone else? See if that sale on Butterballs over at Raley’s was still going on…

Then she saw a pink nub appear around the edge of the door. What the hell? She thought.

As if in answer, the nub resolved into the pink, plucked wingtip of a turkey. Then the rest of the bird – completely plucked of feathers and utterly headless – emerged around the door of the walk-in moving on feet-less drumsticks. It turned its chest towards the walk-it it just emerged from and then used its wingtip to slam the door closed with a force that belied its twenty-to-twenty-five-pound stature. Julie watched in spellbound horror as it turned its body towards her. It locked its neck-hole on her eyes and she felt it was sightlessly staring into her very soul.

Without eyes, without a head, hell without even most of its neck, you would think it difficult for the turkey to convey emotion or intention. Not so. Julie knew two things immediately: one, the turkey was pissed. Two, she needed to run. Now.

She turned run, starting down the long back aisle towards the bakery. She heard the swinging door of the meat department flung open and the wet tapping of drumsticks on tile as the turkey chased after her with furious speed. Julie cast a quick glance back and saw it closing on her breasts canted forward, wings pumping hard.

She juked left around the last horizontal freezer in the aisle, putting the freezer between them. After all, she thought, maybe it can’t see well without… I don’t know A HEAD! She stopped when the turkey stopped opposite her with a skittering slide, the open freezer between them                obscuring the bird. She listened, trying to catch her breath. She heard the tap-tapping of its drumsticks as it started for one side of the freezer; Julie moved to the opposite side. The turkey stopped. Tap tap tap to the other side. Julie moved back to the other corner. Without warning, the naked headless pink turkey leapt up onto the edge of the freezer, its wings outstretched. Julie started to take a few steps backwards before the beheaded bird crouched and launched itself towards her. Julie skittered out of the way as the bird crashed into an endcap display of Pennsylvania Dutch Egg Nog. Bottles crashed, shattering with impact. Julie ran for the bakery as the turkey shook off its rum-soaked dairy bath, regained its footing and started pursuing its quarry.

Julie turned to see if the bird had gotten up and let out a little cry when she saw the pink beast closing on her. She drew a day-old baguette from a table, whipped off the paper wrapper and held it en garde. The turkey sensing danger, skid to a stop just outside baguette range. They faced each other, plucked bird to plucky human. They circled each other, the turkey feinting with a wing which Julie batted with the baguette, Julie taking a step forward with the hard loaf, the bird dodging nimbly. The rounded halfway around and Julie’s foot slipped in a puddle of egg nog. She cursed herself for not changing from her kitten heels into her gym shoes before leaving work as she went to a knee. The turkey lunged at the opening. But Julie hadn’t forgotten everything from those fencing classes in college and she antagonized the attacking bird with the rock-hard baguette, keeping its wings back but still getting spattered with egg nog or turkey slime – she hoped the former. She slashed at its drumsticks and hope blossomed as if fell onto its stub tail with a wet splut. She regained her feet, kicked her shoes off and sprinted back down the aisle. 

As she approached the meat department the door swung open again. She momentarily hoped it might be T.J. or that other guy. Instead she stared in horror as half a dozen pink, plucked, headless Cornish game hens hopped out into the main aisle, turned towards her and ran en masse towards her. Julie’s sprint brought her quickly towards the charging tiny headless hens. At the last moment, she dropped letting her momentum and the poly/rayon blend of her DKNY slacks carry her into a slide worthy of the shortstop of her state champion high school fast-pitch softball that she had been more years ago than she cared to admit. She slid into the puckered game hens more wrecking ball than bowling ball, as the tiny carcasses careened hither and thither.

Back on her feet she stole a glance behind her and saw the turkey back on its drumsticks and gaining momentum with each furious pump of its featherless wings. Her sprint carried her past the frozen section, passed the canned goods. As she started past the paper towels and toilet paper and cleaning supplies, she saw a display of store-branded cloth shopping bags. She hurried around the corner into the aisle and grabbed a bag.

The turkey, seeing her turn down the aisle, adjusted its path to make a full-speed arcing turn into the aisle Julie had disappeared down. It immediately regretted the decision as Julie crouched with the shopping bag wide open and waiting. The bird tried to halt itself, but the bone of its drumsticks skidded easily over the tile as it disappeared into the canvas sack. Julie closed bag as soon as the beast disappeared inside, hurriedly tying the carrying handles down securing her catch. The turkey flailed hard in the sack and Julie held tight. When she heard the bag start to tear she reached for the first thing she could close her hand around – in this case a toilet plunger – and used to mercilessly beat the lurching bag with everything she had.

She kept wailing on the bag after it stopped moving just to be sure. As her blows slowed she looked up to see a crowd of open-mouthed shoppers gathered around her in the aisle, several with cell phones out and recording.

Julie stopped hitting the bag and set the toilet plunger back on the shelf as she nervously climbed back to her feet. She picked up the now-still grocery bag and held it aloft. “Fresh turkey!” she said.